Motivation is not Will.
“I’m just not motivated”
The good news is, motivation isn’t your problem.
The bad news – your lack of Will is.
Here’s why eternally searching for motivation is a waste of time, and how to find what you really need instead.
The Swiss Alpinist Stefan Siegrist was quoted as saying, “Motivation is Will, And Will has two parts – purpose and power. Without Power your Purpose cannot be realised. Without Purpose your Power is diffused.”
Sounds impressive. Wrong, but impressive.
Stefan is a professional Alpinist who can pull off an impressive promo pic on book covers, all lean and tanned and Bear Grylls like. But as a below average height, short-sighted, stay at home Dad from a country town I can tell you he’s wrong*.
Motivation is not Will. Motivation is the pithy catch phrase on the glossy poster in the tea-room at work. It’s the inexplicable desire to go out and skip rope and carry logs in knee deep snow after watching the training montage in Rocky IV despite the fact that haven’t cut a log by hand in a decade let alone carry one, not to mention that the very thought of skipping would cause your achilles to self-combust. Motivation is the reasongym owners love February, because the direct debits keep rolling but your swipe card is tucked well and truly away, for good.
Motivation isn’t Will.
Discipline is Will.
And Discipline does consist of Purpose and Power. Building and maintaining Discipline comes primarily from understanding the question of ‘Why’. Knowing the reason that drives you, the reason why the work must be done. The cost of it not getting done. The value of the long game and the futility of stressing over the short game. Rain, hail or shine – purpose is the lighthouse guiding the half million ton freighter that is your Discipline.
Understanding your purpose, your why, gives you power. The power to shrug off short term set backs, the power to consistently put in the effort, regardless of motivation to do so. What may appear to others to be talent, or some special gift, even luck – is often simply the reward of consistent, focussed, disciplined work.
In the long game, the most disciplined wins, not the most motivated.
There are no superheroes. Just ordinary people delivering extraordinary results by being more disciplined that the rest.
*In my defence and full disclosure I’ve also spent my fair share of time in a climbing harness hanging off the side of some this planets iconic mountains and trudging across swathes of both Antarctica and the Arctic, but hey never let a good dichotomy go to waste….